# Johann Albrecht Bengel
**Johann Albrecht Bengel** (24 June 1687, Winnenden – 2 November 1752, [Stuttgart](https://www.edgepedia.org/stuttgart)) was a German Lutheran theologian and biblical scholar, founder of Swabian Pietism and a pioneer in the critical exegesis of the [New Testament](https://www.edgepedia.org/new-testament)[1](https://www.britannica.com/biography/J-A-Bengel). His fame rests on two works: the *Novum Testamentum Graecum* of 1734 with its *Apparatus criticus*, which became the starting-point for modern textual criticism (reconstructing original texts by comparing manuscript variants) of the New Testament, and the *Gnomon Novi Testamenti* of 1742, a Latin commentary on the whole Greek New Testament[2](https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/encyc/encyc02/htm/iv.iv.cvi.htm). He is generally acknowledged as "the father of modern textual criticism" and is considered the originator of South German (Swabian) Pietism.
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Born / died | 24 June 1687, Winnenden (Württemberg); 2 November 1752, Stuttgart[2](https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/encyc/encyc02/htm/iv.iv.cvi.htm) |
| Career | Professor at the Denkendorf cloister-school from 1713; prelate of Herbrechtingen 1741; consistorial counselor and prelate of Alpirsbach 1749; Tübingen doctorate 1751[2](https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/encyc/encyc02/htm/iv.iv.cvi.htm) |
| Greek Testament 1734 | Tübingen 4to and Stuttgart 8vo editions; collations of upwards of twenty manuscripts, twelve of them his own; readings graded α through ε[3](https://www.1902encyclopedia.com/B/BEN/john-albert-bengel.html) |
| Famous canon | *Proclivi scriptioni praestat ardua*, "the more difficult reading is to be preferred"[2](https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/encyc/encyc02/htm/iv.iv.cvi.htm) |
| Two-family theory | First to propound families of manuscripts, an African (older) and an Asiatic/Byzantine class, anticipating the later Alexandrian/Byzantine text-types[3](https://www.1902encyclopedia.com/B/BEN/john-albert-bengel.html) • [4](https://pure.pthu.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/124424255/537139066.pdf) |
| Gnomon 1742 | Latin verse-by-verse commentary on the entire Greek NT; heavily used by John Wesley in his 1755 *Notes*[3](https://www.1902encyclopedia.com/B/BEN/john-albert-bengel.html) |
| Chronology | Fixed the millennium for 18 June 1836[5](https://place.asburyseminary.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2527&context=asburyjournal&sei-redir=1) • [6](https://hermetism.org/encyclopedia/swabian-biblical-realism-bengel-school/); took the 2,300 days of Daniel as 2,300 literal years without a terminal date[7](https://text.egwwritings.org/read/1579.4578) |
## Life and Württemberg context
Bengel was born in Winnenden, a small town in Württemberg; his father, a pastor, died when Bengel was five, and he entered the [University of Tübingen](https://www.edgepedia.org/university-of-tubingen) at sixteen, in 1703. In 1713 he became professor at the Denkendorf cloister-school, which he headed for twenty-eight years, from 1713 to 1741, working through the entire Greek New Testament with his students every two years[2](https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/encyc/encyc02/htm/iv.iv.cvi.htm) • [3](https://www.1902encyclopedia.com/B/BEN/john-albert-bengel.html) • [8](https://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/haddington-house-journal/13_115.pdf). He was appointed prelate of Herbrechtingen in 1741, made member of consistory and prelate of Alpirsbach in 1749, and received the doctor of divinity degree from Tübingen in 1751[2](https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/encyc/encyc02/htm/iv.iv.cvi.htm) • [3](https://www.1902encyclopedia.com/B/BEN/john-albert-bengel.html).
The setting was post-Thirty-Years'-War Württemberg, whose population was reduced from 313,000 to less than 60,000 between 1634 and 1654. Classical Württemberg Pietism, associated with Spener, Francke, and Bengel, was characterized by a strong apocalyptic component, a high view of education, and a high regard for Scripture.
## The Greek New Testament and textual criticism
As a student at Tübingen, Bengel was deeply troubled by the roughly 30,000 variant readings in John Mill's 1707 edition of the Greek New Testament (another account gives more than 31,000); after study he concluded that the variants did not impact a single doctrine of the faith[8](https://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/haddington-house-journal/13_115.pdf) • [9](https://www.journals.uts.edu/volume-xi-2010/102-the-end-time-calculation-of-johann-albrecht-bengel). He announced his design in a *Prodromus* printed at Tübingen in 1725, appealing for manuscript collations, which brought him material from various parts of Germany, Switzerland, Russia, Slovakia, as well as some Coptic and Armenian variants[10](https://scholar.csl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3460&context=ctm). The *Prodromus* classified manuscripts into two primitive groups, the Asiatic (Byzantine, including the Syriac version) and the African (Egyptian, represented by Codex Alexandrinus and early Latin and Coptic versions)[11](https://www.bible-researcher.com/rules.html).
The Greek Testament itself appeared in 1734 in a 4to edition at Tübingen and an 8vo manual edition at Stuttgart, with an *Introductio in crisin* prefixed and the *Apparatus criticus* and *Epilogus* subjoined[3](https://www.1902encyclopedia.com/B/BEN/john-albert-bengel.html) • [12](http://pa-john.freehostia.com/AD/Michaelis-Bengel.html). Three features define the apparatus:
1. **Grading.** Marginal readings were divided into five groups, from genuine readings down to those to be rejected, marked with the Greek letters α through ε: alpha for a reading Bengel judged true but did not venture to place in the text, beta for one better than the text, gamma for one equal, delta and epsilon for inferior readings[13](https://etsjets.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/files_JETS-PDFs_6_6-3_BETS_6-3_73-81_Hembold.pdf) • [3](https://www.1902encyclopedia.com/B/BEN/john-albert-bengel.html). He was the first to grade probable variants this way[14](http://pa-john.freehostia.com/RECON/Bengel-Jn8.html).
2. **Evidence both ways.** Unlike previous editors, he gave citations both for and against each deviation from the Received Text, so that an unmentioned manuscript's support was never left in doubt; the *Apparatus* also devoted a special section to the complex textual problems of [Revelation](https://www.edgepedia.org/revelation)[15](https://bible-researcher.com/bib-b.html) • [10](https://scholar.csl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3460&context=ctm).
3. **Restriction.** He imposed on himself the restriction of not inserting any variant reading not already printed in some preceding edition of the Greek text, deviating from this rule only in the [Apocalypse](https://www.edgepedia.org/apocalypse), where he established his own text, convinced that both the Erasmian and Complutensian texts had serious defects[3](https://www.1902encyclopedia.com/B/BEN/john-albert-bengel.html) • [4](https://pure.pthu.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/124424255/537139066.pdf).
**The canons.** In section 34 of the introduction Bengel laid down his celebrated four-word canon, *Proclivi scriptioni praestat ardua*, "the more difficult reading is to be preferred to the easier one," reasoning that scribes add explanatory material to clarify difficult texts; the rule has since become almost axiomatic to textual critics, though the idea itself was not new and can already be found in Erasmus's annotations[3](https://www.1902encyclopedia.com/B/BEN/john-albert-bengel.html) • [9](https://www.journals.uts.edu/volume-xi-2010/102-the-end-time-calculation-of-johann-albrecht-bengel) • [10](https://scholar.csl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3460&context=ctm) • [4](https://pure.pthu.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/124424255/537139066.pdf). His other canons included giving greater authority to readings agreeing with versions of the Fathers, and weighting agreement of witnesses from differing countries, ages, and languages over sheer number[8](https://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/haddington-house-journal/13_115.pdf). The preface to the *Gnomon* (1742) contains 27 numbered *Monita* summarizing these principles, naming five criteria for a disputed text: antiquity of the witnesses, diversity of their extraction, their multitude, the apparent origin of the corrupt reading, and the native color of the genuine one[11](https://www.bible-researcher.com/rules.html).
**The two families.** Bengel was the first definitely to propound the theory of families or recensions of manuscripts, dividing them into an African (older) and an Asiatic/Byzantine (more recent) class; he spoke of two "nations," in which one easily recognizes the later "Alexandrian" and "Byzantine" text-types[3](https://www.1902encyclopedia.com/B/BEN/john-albert-bengel.html) • [4](https://pure.pthu.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/124424255/537139066.pdf). Bruce Metzger, the noted textual critic, reports that Bengel was the first to distinguish between families of New Testament manuscripts[8](https://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/haddington-house-journal/13_115.pdf).
## The Gnomon Novi Testamenti
The *Gnomon Novi Testamenti*, published at Tübingen in 1742, is a Latin, verse-by-verse and sometimes phrase-by-phrase commentary on the Greek text of the entire New Testament[16](https://etsjets.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/files_JETS-PDFs_47_47-1_47-1-pp071-088_JETS.pdf). The full title promises that "the native force of the words the simplicity, profundity, concinnity, salubrity of the heavenly senses is indicated"; in the preface Bengel explains the title (the gnomon is the pointer on a sundial) as an index-like guide, and states his principle, *Omnia te textus ipse docet*, "the text itself teaches all"[17](https://archive.org/details/dioalbertibengel01beng). The 1759 second edition runs 1,396 pages[17](https://archive.org/details/dioalbertibengel01beng).
Sources disagree on the labor behind it: the 1902 encyclopedia calls it the fruit of twenty years' labor, while a later journal article says it appeared after thirty years[3](https://www.1902encyclopedia.com/B/BEN/john-albert-bengel.html) • [13](https://etsjets.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/files_JETS-PDFs_6_6-3_BETS_6-3_73-81_Hembold.pdf). It went through a second edition in 1759 and a third in 1773 edited by his son Ernst Bengel, with notes added by J. Steudel in 1835[15](https://bible-researcher.com/bib-b.html).
**Wesley's use.** [John Wesley](https://www.edgepedia.org/john-wesley) translated most of the Gnomon's notes into his *Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament* (London, 1755), and used Bengel's *Exposition of the Apocalypse* especially extensively as the foundation for his own Notes on Revelation[2](https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/encyc/encyc02/htm/iv.iv.cvi.htm) • [5](https://place.asburyseminary.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2527&context=asburyjournal&sei-redir=1). One account describes this as a translation and abridgment rather than a full translation[6](https://hermetism.org/encyclopedia/swabian-biblical-realism-bengel-school/). Through Wesley the Swabian commentator entered English Methodism[6](https://hermetism.org/encyclopedia/swabian-biblical-realism-bengel-school/).
## Eschatology and chronology
Bengel's chronological works, the *Erklärte Offenbarung Johannis* (1740), *Ordo Temporum* (1741), and *Cyclus* (1745), computed the world-ages and fixed the dawn of the millennium precisely to 18 June 1836[2](https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/encyc/encyc02/htm/iv.iv.cvi.htm) • [6](https://hermetism.org/encyclopedia/swabian-biblical-realism-bengel-school/). His most characteristic principle of prophetic interpretation, a month for approximately fifteen years, was derived by conjecturing that the beast's number 666 signified years equal to its 42 months: dividing 666 years of common time by 42 prophetic months gives 15 and 6/7 chronological years as the value of a prophetic month. L. E. Froom, the Seventh-day Adventist historian of prophetic interpretation, judged this calculation "wholly arbitrary and groundless"[9](https://www.journals.uts.edu/volume-xi-2010/102-the-end-time-calculation-of-johann-albrecht-bengel) • [7](https://text.egwwritings.org/read/1579.4578). Bengel held that the 2,300 days of Daniel are 2,300 literal years, but offered no terminal date for them[7](https://text.egwwritings.org/read/1579.4578). In the Apocalypse's twenty periods he distinguished seven Greek time-words, hora, hemera, men, etos, chronos, kairos, aion, treating the distinctions as significant[9](https://www.journals.uts.edu/volume-xi-2010/102-the-end-time-calculation-of-johann-albrecht-bengel). He urged individual preparation for the millennial reign of Christ on earth which he expected to begin in 1836[7](https://text.egwwritings.org/read/1579.4578). His eschatology used a continuous-historical method of interpreting Revelation, earning him the title "father of modern eschatological study," with influence on Crusius, Hengstenberg, Stier, and von Hofmann[13](https://etsjets.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/files_JETS-PDFs_6_6-3_BETS_6-3_73-81_Hembold.pdf).
## Bengel among his contemporaries
**Against Mill and the Textus Receptus.** Mill's apparatus of some 30,000 variants provoked Bengel's lifelong work[9](https://www.journals.uts.edu/volume-xi-2010/102-the-end-time-calculation-of-johann-albrecht-bengel). Bengel's 1734 text was in fact a minimally revised [Textus Receptus](https://www.edgepedia.org/textus-receptus) with critically chosen readings in the margin; his importance rests on his introduction, marginalia, and explanatory articles rather than on his text or his collations, which [Scrivener](https://www.edgepedia.org/scrivener) notes are rather poor[14](http://pa-john.freehostia.com/RECON/Bengel-Jn8.html). Yet on modern principles he proposed more changes to the Textus Receptus than any other edition before Lachmann's[14](http://pa-john.freehostia.com/RECON/Bengel-Jn8.html).
**Against Wettstein.** Johann Jakob Wettstein printed the Elzevier Textus Receptus in his 1751–1752 edition but marked rejected readings and printed his preferred readings on a separate line below, and he rejected the Comma Johanneum (1 John 5:7) without hesitation[4](https://pure.pthu.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/124424255/537139066.pdf). Bengel, by contrast, defended the Comma rather than recommending its omission, which gained him the respect of potential attackers[14](http://pa-john.freehostia.com/RECON/Bengel-Jn8.html). Wettstein accused Bengel of excessive caution, and Bengel answered in a defense prefixed to his *Harmony of the Four Gospels*[3](https://www.1902encyclopedia.com/B/BEN/john-albert-bengel.html). Bengel himself claimed his critics could not provide "one single instance, in which I have altered, by innovation, even a syllable of the Sacred Text"[16](https://etsjets.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/files_JETS-PDFs_47_47-1_47-1-pp071-088_JETS.pdf).
**Toward the modern critical text.** Bengel's minimal-revision approach, with preferences indicated in a small apparatus rather than a freshly constituted text, anticipated the later trajectory: Lachmann's 1831 edition departed from the Textus Receptus toward the oldest uncials, Westcott and Hort's 1881 text elevated [Codex Vaticanus](https://www.edgepedia.org/codex-vaticanus) and [Codex Sinaiticus](https://www.edgepedia.org/codex-sinaiticus) to a "Neutral" class, and Nestle's 1898 edition, built from the majority reading of three scholarly editions, marked the end of the Textus Receptus[4](https://pure.pthu.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/124424255/537139066.pdf) • [11](https://www.bible-researcher.com/rules.html).
## Reception and influence
After publication of the *Apparatus Criticus* (1734) and *Gnomon* (1742), Bengel was attacked from both sides: some assailed him as a dangerous innovator with "unprecedented audacity" whose Greek text would "supply infidels with weapons," while others thought him too timid[8](https://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/haddington-house-journal/13_115.pdf). The scholar Johann David Michaelis judged that Bengel executed his introduction in so clear and concise a manner that the clergy in general began to think it less dangerous than they had imagined[12](http://pa-john.freehostia.com/AD/Michaelis-Bengel.html). Count Zinzendorf announced that Bengel's text would be the basis of the German version used in Moravian churches[14](http://pa-john.freehostia.com/RECON/Bengel-Jn8.html).
**The 1836 afterlife.** Bengel's admirers and followers in Germany and German colonial lands perpetuated his expectation of the grand climax about 1836, on the supposition that the number 666 marked the years of [papal supremacy](https://www.edgepedia.org/papal-supremacy); writers reflecting this between 1820 and 1835 include Lindl, Lilienstern, Leutwein, Stilling, Norke, Rohrborn, and Wurm[18](https://text.egwwritings.org/read/1582.2004). Although the communal settlement at Korntal was founded in 1819, Bengel's expectation persisted after 1836 through Jung-Stilling and later Württemberg piety, and devout companies emigrated eastward toward the Caucasus and the neighborhood of Ararat[6](https://hermetism.org/encyclopedia/swabian-biblical-realism-bengel-school/). Pastor J. F. E. Sander, in his 1829 *Versuch einer Erklärung der Offenbarung*, changed from Bengel's 1836 date to 1843, or possibly 1847[18](https://text.egwwritings.org/read/1582.2004). In the English-speaking world Bengel's schema was overshadowed by two independent Millennialist scenarios, the Millerites of William Miller (1782–1849) and the Premillennial Dispensationalists[9](https://www.journals.uts.edu/volume-xi-2010/102-the-end-time-calculation-of-johann-albrecht-bengel); as late as 1833 W. A. Holmes, Chancellor of Cashel, was almost the only British supporter of the 1836 date[18](https://text.egwwritings.org/read/1582.2004). Wesley himself adopted a Bengel-derived theory of final events in 1755 that pushed the second coming two thousand years beyond 1836, with a millennium of bliss on earth beginning then, but very few Methodist leaders adopted the Bengelian views[19](https://www.ministrymagazine.org/archive/1960/04/john-wesley-and-the-end-of-the-world).
**Nestle's homage.** Eberhard Nestle's original proposal for the *Novum Testamentum Graece* took Bengel's 1734 Greek text as its planned base; the Württemberg Bible Society committee rejected it as too regionally significant, but from the NTG's third edition (1901) a Bengel quotation, *Te totum applica ad textum: rem totam applica ad te*, opened the introduction. Nestle also published an 1893 homage, *Bengel als Gelehrter: Ein Bild für unsere Tage*, praising the union of piety and scholarship in Bengel[20](https://criticaltexts.com/nestle-aland-the-origin-story/).
## References
1. [J.A. Bengel, Encyclopaedia Britannica](https://www.britannica.com/biography/J-A-Bengel)
2. [Bengel, Johann Albrecht, Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge](https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/encyc/encyc02/htm/iv.iv.cvi.htm)
3. [John Albert Bengel, 1902 Encyclopedia (Britannica 9th/10th ed. text)](https://www.1902encyclopedia.com/B/BEN/john-albert-bengel.html)
4. [The History of New Testament Textual Criticism (Krans-Plaisier & Yi)](https://pure.pthu.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/124424255/537139066.pdf)
5. [John Wesley on the Book of Revelation, Asbury Journal](https://place.asburyseminary.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2527&context=asburyjournal&sei-redir=1)
6. [Swabian biblical realism (Bengel school)](https://hermetism.org/encyclopedia/swabian-biblical-realism-bengel-school/)
7. [L. E. Froom, The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, Vol. 2](https://text.egwwritings.org/read/1579.4578)
8. [Bengel, textual criticism and inspiration, Haddington House Journal 2008](https://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/haddington-house-journal/13_115.pdf)
9. [The End-Time Calculation of Johann Albrecht Bengel, Journal of Unification Studies XI (2010)](https://www.journals.uts.edu/volume-xi-2010/102-the-end-time-calculation-of-johann-albrecht-bengel)
10. [In Memoriam: Joh. Albrecht Bengel, Concordia Theological Monthly](https://scholar.csl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3460&context=ctm)
11. [Rules of Textual Criticism (Bengel's Prodromus and Monita in translation)](https://www.bible-researcher.com/rules.html)
12. [Michaelis on Bengel (with Bengel's Monita)](http://pa-john.freehostia.com/AD/Michaelis-Bengel.html)
13. [J. A. Bengel, Bulletin of the Evangelical Theological Society 6.3](https://etsjets.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/files_JETS-PDFs_6_6-3_BETS_6-3_73-81_Hembold.pdf)
14. [Bengel's NT: introduction and apparatus description](http://pa-john.freehostia.com/RECON/Bengel-Jn8.html)
15. [Bibliography of Textual Criticism 'B' (Bengel entries)](https://bible-researcher.com/bib-b.html)
16. [Bengel's Gnomon as a Test Case for His View of Scripture, JETS 47.1](https://etsjets.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/files_JETS-PDFs_47_47-1_47-1-pp071-088_JETS.pdf)
17. [D. Io. Alberti Bengelii Gnomon Novi Testamenti (1759), Internet Archive](https://archive.org/details/dioalbertibengel01beng)
18. [L. E. Froom, The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, Vol. 3](https://text.egwwritings.org/read/1582.2004)
19. [John Wesley and the End of the World, Ministry Magazine (1960)](https://www.ministrymagazine.org/archive/1960/04/john-wesley-and-the-end-of-the-world)
20. [Nestle Aland: The Origin Story](https://criticaltexts.com/nestle-aland-the-origin-story/)
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